Romney says biggest error was failing to focus on minorities

Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said on Meet the Press Sunday, "The biggest mistake I made was not focusing very early on minority voters."

Romney made the case that Republican policies are for job creation and economic growth, which could be compelling arguments for minority voters. Republican policies "are designed to help people get out of poverty," Romney said. Democratic policies, by comparison, "don;t create jobs," he said. But Republicans have to communicate that to minority groups that have traditiaonlly voted Democratic.

It's not an entirely new analysis for the former Massachusetts governor. Days after the 2012 election, Romney told supporters that President Obama had given big "gifts" to minorities and young people, which drove up Obama's vote.

As the New York Times reported at the time:

In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign, Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the “old playbook” of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people.”

“In each case, they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said, contrasting Mr. Obama’s strategy to his own of “talking about big issues for the whole country: military strategy, foreign policy, a strong economy, creating jobs and so forth.”

Obama took 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012 and 93 percent of the African American vote. The result spawned a post-mortem report by the Republican National Committee that emphasized changing the party's outreach to minorities. Party Chairman Reince Priebus pledged to spend $10 million on outreach to minorities.

Romney's campaign will perhaps best be remembered for a secretly-recorded speech in which he said 47 percent of the voters would vote for Obama because they had become dependent on government handouts. The quote was widely seen as a slight to poor and minority communities.

Romney hosted a donor conference in Utah this weekend with several top 2016 GOP presidential prospects, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina. But according to the Salt Lake Tribune, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appeared to make the best impression on attendees.